Now that we are getting down to the final days of the campaign, its time to take a look at how Republicans will steal this election. Bush stole the 2000 election by purging voters from voter rolls in Florida. Tens of thousands of mostly black felons were removed from the voter rolls by Kathleen Harris and Bush won by a tiny number of votes. Then in 2004, the election was stolen in Ohio via several insane tactics, like removing the press from a building where votes where being counted due to national security reasons. Election officials in Ohio have been convicted of charges related to their handling of the recount. Youd have to be a fucking moron not to believe the election was stolen in that state in 2004.

So, now here we are, facing another theft as Republicans do everything they can to prevent Americans from voting. One of the big attempts to stop people from voting in Ohio was thwarted by the Supreme Court last week.

The Supreme Court sided Friday with Ohio's top elections official in a dispute with the state Republican Party over voter registrations.

The justices overruled a federal appeals court that had ordered Ohio's top elections official to do more to help counties verify voter eligibility.

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, faced a deadline of Friday to set up a system to provide local officials with names of newly registered voters whose driver's license numbers or Social Security numbers on voter registration forms don't match records in other government databases.

Republicans were attempting to force the Secretary of State of verify new registration cards of 200,000 voters. There simply wasnt enough time to do so and it would have disqualified many voters for things like spelling errors. Remember Joe the plumber? His name on the registration rolls has an o where a u should be, which would mean he would not be able to vote if the Republicans got their way all because some election worker couldnt read his writing. Because the vast majority of new voters are registering as Democrats, this would have had a big negative effect on Obama voters.

Nine million new voters have registered for this election. Those are the people the GOP is targeting. The ridiculous ACORN charges, which CNN said, looks like a fraud perpetrated on ACORN, not by ACORN, , are just a way of gumming up the works. In some states, voters can be challenged at the polls, causing delays for other voters and forcing the challenged voter to cast a provisional ballot. Provisional ballots are not treated in the same way; many are left uncounted, being tossed out for technical reasons and because of lawsuits. This is the main crux of the Republican attack: People will impersonate voters and vote illegally.

A 2007 study by the New York University School of Law concluded that "it is more likely that an individual will be struck by lightning than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls."

So, it's a lie, plain and simple. But reality wont stop Republicans. They are filing lawsuits and investigating wherever they can, regardless of the facts.

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters, who serves as John McCains Southwest Ohio campaign chairman, has requested personal information for some individuals who registered and immediately cast a ballot during a weeklong period that ended earlier this month.

Deters issued a subpoena on Friday for complete registration records for roughly 40 percent of the 671 voters who registered and cast a ballot between Sept. 30, when early voting began, and Oct. 6, the deadline for voter registration.

The subpoena, obtained by The Associated Press, is part of a grand jury investigation initiated by Deters in the county.

Weve had widespread complaints of fraud but we do not discuss investigations at all, Deters said. He said the complaints came from a variety of sources.

Ooooo, a variety of sources. Well, then by all means, intimidate and disenfranchise voters. And dont just do it in one part of Ohio, or it wouldnt look like a planned effort.

Law enforcement officials in southwest Ohio are seeking information on hundreds of voters who registered and voted during Ohio's weeklong same-day voting window.

Greene County Sheriff Gene Fischer and representatives of County Prosecutor Stephen Haller have contacted the local Board of Elections asking for the voter registration cards of everyone who voted during the six-day window, which ended Monday.

And be sure to use the same excuse.

Greene County Sheriff Gene Fischer, a Republican, requested registration cards and address change forms Thursday for all 302 people who took advantage of the window. He told elections officials he had been flooded with telephone calls from people concerned about possible fraud.

Ooooo, telephone calls from concerned people. Oh noes! I wonder who they are?

These are classic Republican tactics. They wont actually steal the votes, they will do everything they can to prevent people from voting in the first place. The people they are targeting are mostly blacks and college students.

Students in Virginia, Colorado and South Carolina were wrongfully told by voting officials that they could lose their scholarships and their parents would no longer be able to claim them on their income taxes if they registered to vote in their college towns.

It is happening everywhere. Whatever they can do to stop people from voting.

In Alabama, scores of voters are being labeled as convicted felons on the basis of incorrect lists.

Michigan must restore thousands of names it illegally removed from voter rolls over residency questions, a judge ruled this week.

Tens of thousands of voters could be affected in Wisconsin. Officials there admit that their database is wrong one out of five times when it flags voters, sometimes for data discrepancies as small as middle initial or a typo in a birth date. When the six members of the state elections board -- all retired judges -- ran their registrations through the system, four were incorrectly rejected because of mismatches.

And the focus seems to be on certain states. Youre not going to believe this, but they are the important ones.

It is "this season's big issue," said Wendy R. Weiser, who directs voting rights projects for the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's School of Law, noting that efforts to keep names off the lists are "a new trend, not in the majority of states but in the battleground states."

The reason this is a new trend is because of the Help America Vote Act of 2002. The law gave money to states to update the voting equipment and centralize their voter databases. Republicans are now using the centralizing of information to purge voters. If the name on your registration card does not match the name on your drivers license or Social Security number, you are tossed. So, people could be losing their right to vote because of a clerical error. Pretty great, huh?

Several of the battles over registration lists have taken on a partisan tinge, including in Montana, where a state GOP official challenged nearly 6,000 voters over apparent discrepancies in their addresses. He dropped his challenge after Democrats went to court, but not before one county sent letters to hundreds of voters informing them that their registrations were in jeopardy. Now the county is trying to let them know they are eligible to cast ballots after all.

The Republicans filed the case "with the express intent to disenfranchise voters," a federal judge said.

The GOP is throwing every thing against the wall and seeing what sticks.

Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, who co-chairs John McCain's campaign in that state, is demanding that election officials use the database to re-verify the identities of voters who registered going back to 2006.

The elections board has refused, citing the database's error rate. The issue has gone to court, and a ruling is expected next week.

Thank God Republicans are looking out for fraud, or else some guy might vote when he shouldnt and tens of thousands wont be able to vote at all.

Among the errors with Wisconsin's database, which has been fully in place just since August, are incorrect ages for 95,000 voters, all of whom are listed as 108 years old. If no birth date was available when names were moved into the electronic system, it automatically assigned Jan. 1, 1900.

In court filings, Van Hollen said "tens of thousands" of ineligible voters could cast ballots, noting that Wisconsin "will be a swing state" whose 10 electoral votes "may be won by a very narrow margin."

If we're talking about voter fraud, we are obligated to look at Florida.

Today voting rights advocates expressed alarm over the Secretary of State's September 8th decision to enforce the state's "no-match, no-vote" law, a voter registration law that previously blocked more than 16,000 eligible Florida citizens from registering to vote, through no fault of their own, and could disenfranchise tens of thousands more voters in November. Secretary of State Browning's last-minute decision to implement the law in the final month before the registration deadline will pose a significant hurdle to eligible Florida citizens hoping to register and vote in November. It will disenfranchise voters who do not send or bring a photocopy of their driver's license to county election officials' offices after voting, even if these voters showed poll workers their driver's licenses at the polls on Election Day.

Thats all great, because the Social Security Administrations record for matching voter registrations is stellar.

The Social Security Administration reports a 46% failure rate when trying to match voter registration applications. State officials admitted in a recent challenge to the law, Florida NAACP v. Browning, that typographical errors by election workers are responsible for most of the failures.

And youre not going to believe this, but the Florida Secretary of State is a Republican. Shocking, I know. Of course, its not as shocking as Republicans admitting they want to stop people who lost their homes from voting.

In a startling concession, the Republican Party has admitted to participating in an illegal scheme to use foreclosure lists to challenge predominantly Democratic voters in Michigan on Election Day.

An announcement by the Michigan Democratic Party of the settlement of a suit brought last month by the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign states, "The settlement acknowledges the existence of an illegal scheme by the Republicans to use mortgage foreclosure lists to deny foreclosure victims their right to vote. This settlement has the force of law behind it and ensures that Republicans cannot disenfranchise families facing foreclosure.

Across the country, early voters are already experiencing long lines.

But this election is different. The six early voting sites across the county have experienced lines with 3,292 early ballots cast Wednesday and another 1,126 cast today by noon.

Most depressing was watching only two of the five voting machines in use because of the slow registration validation process, Bulter wrote.

Cant wait to see how things zip along on election day, especially in areas with high African American populations and college voters. It is so blatant and obvious that when Republican Congressman Tom Davis was asked about it, he said the GOP would never engage in voter suppression as a joke.

Hee hee. Were undermining democracy.

The attacks on ACORN are simply intended to create chaos at the polls on Election Day, in order to delay and discourage voters and lay the seeds for accusations of theft if Obama actually is able to overcome the current deficit he finds himself in. At least, thats what the McCain camp
is saying.

"If left uncorrected, these numerous investigations and accusations of voter fraud with ACORN could produce a nightmare scenario on Election Day."

Even though the right wing screams and loses their Borg-like mind over ACORN, the only person who has actually been arrested for voter fraud this year is a Republican.

Yesterday police arrested Mark Jacoby, the owner of Young Political Majors, a firm hired by Republicans to register voters. He is facing felony charges of voter registration fraud and perjury. Oh, and unlike ACORN, its a company actually committing voter fraud in different states

Dozens of newly minted Republican voters say they were duped into joining the party by a GOP contractor with a trail of fraud complaints stretching across the country.

Voters contacted by The Times said they were tricked into switching parties while signing what they believed were petitions for tougher penalties against child molesters. Some said they were told that they had to become Republicans to sign the petition, contrary to California initiative law. Others had no idea their registration was being changed.

Doesnt sound too bad, does it? People can still vote, right? Well, it actually is an effective tactic.

The switches could impede Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts and could prevent those affected from voting in next year's Democratic primaries. Some of the voters were even switched to absentee status, meaning they could lose their vote entirely if they show up at the polls on Election Day without bringing an absentee ballot.

Election officials and lawmakers have launched investigations into the activities of YPM workers in Florida and Massachusetts. In Arizona, the firm was recently a defendant in a civil rights lawsuit.

Unlike ACORN, this GOP voter fraud is actually serious.

MSNBC's Contessa Brewer asked legal analyst Susan Filan on Monday about the case. "This is really serious," Filan responded. "This is a very specific, deliberate intent to mislead." She contrasted it with the far more trivial accusations of voter fraud against the anti-poverty group ACORN, which has handed in occasional fake registrations under names such as "Mickey Mouse."

Im sure the right wing blather machine will jump all over this story. If you want to know what this scumbag has been up to, I suggest reading BradBlog.

Republicans are working hard to steal this election, while keeping Democrats on defense with the ACORN allegations. One only needs to look at Colorado to see what is going on. The state has significantly increased its population since 2004, but there are 100,000 fewer voters registered. Greg Palast believes the suppression tactics have led to 2.7 million registration being tossed out.

Republicans are doing everything they can to steal another one. If they succeed, expect them to point at two excuses. One is complacency, which was recently handed to them on a silver platter by Obama and other Democrats. The other is the Bradley Effect, a mythical election theory, which assumes voters tell pollsters they will vote for a black man, but when they are in the booth they cant bring themselves to do it. It is named after former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and assumes he lost his two races for governor because of this theory. The Bradley Effect is a complete load of bullshit. It never happened.

But none of that matters. Republicans have the script, with the reasons why Obama suddenly lost, even though polls expected a crushing victory. If they do, Democracy in America is officially dead.

FearTheReaper is a writer, actor and stand up comedian. Check back each Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday for more from FearTheReaper and read his blog, Stop All Monsters.

GrayRains

Twin Lake, MI

January 2008

OCT 21, 2008 06:14 AM

Is Obama firing back over these neo-con tactics at all per chance?

commonman

USA

August 2003

OCT 21, 2008 06:29 AM

This is why we need a standardized national database of citizens, so we can know where people live and who they really are. Then we wouldn't even need to have "voter registration," because everyone would already be accounted for.

Of course, many on the right have strongly resisted the creation of a national ID system (See this discussion on the REAL ID), so their call to force all voters to have an ID is both incongruous and strange. If we don't need universal IDs to protect us against terrorism, why do we need them to vote?

There has been lots of vote fraud in the US, though it has not been caused by voters, but by vote counters. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that conservatives are, again, blaming the victims.

BTW, the comic book at Steal Back Your Vote is very informative and will piss you off if you haven't already read it.

Quella

USA

July 2008

OCT 21, 2008 08:20 AM

Please tell us, what can we do???

bean

STAFF

Los Angeles, CA

OCT 21, 2008 08:46 AM

GrayRains said:
Is Obama firing back over these neo-con tactics at all per chance?

An announcement by the Michigan Democratic Party of the settlement of a suit brought last month by the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign states....

(emphasis mine)

flyboy757

Magnolia, TX

August 2004

OCT 21, 2008 08:50 AM

Well, it is easy to commit voter fraud. For many years my dad would send me the absentee ballots from my hometown even though I had already registered to vote where I was living. Kept telling him to have my name removed from the list but by that time it was after the elections and he would forget until the next time. Since I didn't vote the way most on this board would prefer you will be happy to know that I never did send the absentee ballots back in.

Quella

USA

July 2008

OCT 21, 2008 09:06 AM

I am working at the polls and I have friends who are attys who are working the polls and I tell people door-to-door to bring photo ID and a piece of mail with their addresses. Where is this done? in the lowest income areas of course, as these are the people stripped of their rights.

but what else can we do?

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

SaucisseDanseuse

Italy

March 2005

OCT 21, 2008 09:21 AM

i am officially scared now. thanks.

i do not want to wake on a november day and re-live the astonishment that took me when i heard bush was re-elected. thanks to stolen votes.